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Darn you Guy, you got me thinking about this stuff now.
Let's say you're a tennis player. You started playing the game very young. You loved the game but you just didn't have much athletic ability, plus your hand-to-eye coordination wasn't the greatest, but you decided to take lessons with a fantastic teaching pro. After a couple years your game had markedly improved, and you've even entered tournaments and did okay, maybe actually making a semi-final once, in your age class. If you stuck with the game and dedicated your entire life to it, you might even become a decent journeyman pro on the Satellite Tour, the minor leagues of pro tennis.
Now let's say your name is John McEnroe. You took up the game at the same age. You took lessons with the same pro and were entered into tournaments after a year. You found yourself absolutely dominating tournaments against your peers. So the tennis pro puts you against kids 3 or 4 years older than you, and you're still winning everything you enter, but the kicker is that you never really enjoyed practicing, just playing matches. You play on your high school team as #1 singles and dominate, winning the state championship without even losing a set. Stanford offers you a scholarship and you win the NCAA chanpionship as a Freshman, so you decide to turn pro. You enter Wimbledon as a 17 year old and make it all the way to the semifinals before losing to the number one player in the world, Jimmy Connors, plus you were unseeded. And the kicker is that you never really put much work into the game, it just came to you. You played doubles instead of practicing. Next year you become number four in the world, and the year after win your first Wimbledon beating the legendary Bjorn Borg, who was considered unbeatable.
Now remember, both players had the same teacher. And did the pro teach McEnroe something that he didn't teach the other player. No, not at all, McEnroe just had a gift for tennis that was natural, it was destiny, and couldn't be taught. No one could have taught McEnroe to become the player he became. He just had it.
I think it's exactly the same in the arts, photography, music, writing, painting, whatever. Actually tennis is an art, as well as a sport.
Let's say you're a tennis player. You started playing the game very young. You loved the game but you just didn't have much athletic ability, plus your hand-to-eye coordination wasn't the greatest, but you decided to take lessons with a fantastic teaching pro. After a couple years your game had markedly improved, and you've even entered tournaments and did okay, maybe actually making a semi-final once, in your age class. If you stuck with the game and dedicated your entire life to it, you might even become a decent journeyman pro on the Satellite Tour, the minor leagues of pro tennis.
Now let's say your name is John McEnroe. You took up the game at the same age. You took lessons with the same pro and were entered into tournaments after a year. You found yourself absolutely dominating tournaments against your peers. So the tennis pro puts you against kids 3 or 4 years older than you, and you're still winning everything you enter, but the kicker is that you never really enjoyed practicing, just playing matches. You play on your high school team as #1 singles and dominate, winning the state championship without even losing a set. Stanford offers you a scholarship and you win the NCAA chanpionship as a Freshman, so you decide to turn pro. You enter Wimbledon as a 17 year old and make it all the way to the semifinals before losing to the number one player in the world, Jimmy Connors, plus you were unseeded. And the kicker is that you never really put much work into the game, it just came to you. You played doubles instead of practicing. Next year you become number four in the world, and the year after win your first Wimbledon beating the legendary Bjorn Borg, who was considered unbeatable.
Now remember, both players had the same teacher. And did the pro teach McEnroe something that he didn't teach the other player. No, not at all, McEnroe just had a gift for tennis that was natural, it was destiny, and couldn't be taught. No one could have taught McEnroe to become the player he became. He just had it.
I think it's exactly the same in the arts, photography, music, writing, painting, whatever. Actually tennis is an art, as well as a sport.